Military Enlistees Retreat as Chances of War Increase : Service: The number of enlistments has slackened since Operation Desert Shield began. Recruiters are not meeting their quotas and some are changing tactics.

Christopher Acosta wanted to join the Navy, but after the crisis in the Middle East heated up he changed his mind. So did his parents. Do not go until the conflict cools, they told their 17-year-old son.

“I can’t see fighting over oil,” said Acosta, a high school senior in Escondido.

In the months since Operation Desert Shield began, military recruiters have been having a difficult time wooing applicants, so much so that at least one branch of the service--the Army--has decided to give bonuses to recruiters for finding enlistees with particular specialties. And recruiters have resorted to more creative tactics to meet their quotas.

Although military officials acknowledge their recruitment efforts are off, they are less than certain that tensions in the Middle East are the cause.

“Recruiting is harder--it would be foolish to say it isn’t,” said Vice Adm. Jeremy Boorda, chief of naval personnel and deputy chief of naval operations in Washington.

But, added Pentagon spokesman Maj. Doug Hart: “It’s hard to say if Operation Desert Shield has had an effect. Recruiters are meeting their goals.”

Since Iraq invaded Kuwait, Navy recruiting has slowed. In November, Navy recruiters missed their quota by 27% when they signed up 4,547 new recruits. During the same month, Army recruiting dipped 23% when 5,488 new recruits volunteered.

In the Army, the decline in contracts signed by new recruits began in September when officials sought 8,371 and obtained 6,503-- a 22% drop. In the next two months, the drop-off persisted. In October, Army officials sought 10,039 but found only 8,237 new recruits.

So far, slowdowns in recruiting have had little impact because the Navy and other branches of the armed forces can dip into manpower “bank accounts” and call up deferred recruits, Boorda said. He and Hart said the military suffers no deficit in able-bodied, qualified recruits, especially since Congress asked the armed forces to reduce their numbers by 80,000.

But critics argue that the Pentagon is scrambling to hide the fact that potential enlistees are shying away from possible participation in a war.

“You cannot discount the clear indications that the growing prospects of war in the Middle East are having a negative effect on volunteer enlistment. The young are saying, ‘This is not my war,’ ” said retired Rear Adm. Eugene Carroll, a former assistant chief of naval personnel in Washington.

“To say that the military is continuing to meet monthly accessions because of delayed entry recruits is a natural cover-up, “ said Carroll, deputy director of the Center for Defense Information. “They are going to fall behind--and they are trying to avoid the bad publicity that will slow down recruiting even further. If you’ve got a dog at the box office, you don’t advertise that you have unsold tickets.”

For recruiters in Southern California, the sting of Operation Desert Shield is sharp. They say some parents, like the Acostas, are voicing concerns and stopping their children from enlisting. Most potential recruits ask whether they will be sent to the gulf, and the longstanding selling point about learning a skill is not as effective today as it was before August.

For Chris Acosta and others, the danger of combat outweighs the military’s allure. Acosta wanted to enlist for typical reasons--the chance for adventure, travel and educational benefits.

“This Middle East thing really scared me,” he said. “I didn’t want to take the chance that they would put me out on a boat in the gulf.”

Instead, he started working part time in the fish department of a pet shop to save money for next year, when he hopes to attend a local college.

Denise Acosta Stringfield, his mother, said the family had many discussions about whether Chris should enlist. Stringfield’s father had served 20 years--including two tours in Vietnam--as a Marine. Describing herself as pro-military, Stringfield, 34, says she had very mixed feelings about her son’s dilemma. In the end, she let Chris decide.

“Even though we may not go to war, a lot of young men are dying, more than 50 so far. It just hit me that Chris could be killed, my son could be killed,” said Stringfield, a customer service sales representative. “He’s only 17--he’s still pretty young. He’s got plenty of time to enlist.”

In the wake of the Persian Gulf crisis, Pentagon officials have no plans to alter their $2-billion annual recruiting campaign to lure more enlistees, spokesman Hart said. But to help recruiters attract enlistees, the Army established $2,000 bonuses for positions such as water treatment specialists that have been difficult to fill during recent months.

Some recruiters are changing their approach. Sgt. 1st Class Dave Eisenbarth, an Army recruiter in Simi Valley, has given up on cold calls to youngsters’ homes, a standard recruiting method. Instead, he frequents shopping malls in hopes of finding potential enlistees.

Rather than having interested youngsters come to his office, Eisenbarth now sets up meetings in their homes--hoping to also chat with parents. In this way, he tries to short-circuit what seems to be an inevitable volley of questions that parents fire when they learn their children have seen a recruiter.

Other recruiters note some unforeseen burdens caused by Operation Desert Shield. When Marine Corps Sgt. Joe Steele visits schools, he can no longer bring light armored vehicles--one of the Marines’ most popular calling cards. Most of the eight-wheeled Jeeps, which travel water and land, have been shipped to the Middle East, along with the men who drive them.

Youngsters were allowed to climb into the vehicles and their absence is a loss, said Steele of the San Diego Marine Corps Recruiting Station, which includes San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Imperial counties. To compensate, he is trying to arrange for historical displays of older equipment. It won’t be quite the same, he acknowledges, but it beats just handing out pencils, stickers and posters.

Increasingly, recruiters are facing numbers of applicants who want to know where they will be stationed. Selling what could turn into a war is not easy--even if most new recruits would not be eligible to be shipped out of the country for at least four months.

“It means we need to talk to more people. We are selling a way of life; not a job. . . . We are selling money, educational benefits, adventure and travel. But some parents say they would just as soon not have a son or daughter in the Army right now,” said Lt. Col. Richard Holmes of the Army’s Los Angeles recruiting battalion, a region that stretches from Santa Ana to Paso Robles. In that area, Holmes said, recruiters have been able to meet their monthly quota of 300.

Recruiting rates vary from region to region and from branch to branch of the armed services. Holmes and others explain that this often has to do with the area’s economy and the strength of its recruiting staff. Recruiting rates can also vary from month to month.

In the area reaching from San Diego to Barstow to Las Vegas, Navy recruiters met their goals in October and missed their mark slightly in November. But in September, they fell far short of their goal of obtaining 228 new enlistees when they recruited 106--about a third of what they recruited the previous year.

“I really get frustrated when I invest so much time, when I talk with an individual and he is ready to go for it. Then it comes down to taking the physical and he says, ‘I am not going, I am afraid,’ ” sighed Petty Officer H.L. Scott, recruiter-in-charge at the Navy recruiting station in Escondido. “Desert Shield has had an impact, everybody knows that.”